


melpomene

by violetkareninas



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternative Timeline, F/M, Heavy Angst, M/M, Multi, Post-TRoS, Slow Burn, Spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22024276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetkareninas/pseuds/violetkareninas
Summary: Melpomene (noun): The Greek muse of Tragedy. / A narrative in 5 parts."Not everything that is gone can truly be forgotten.Not everything that is forgotten can ever really be lost."Rey comes to terms with grief and learns that - just sometimes - death is not the end of things.(Reylo fix-it, post-sequel, massive spoilers for TROS)
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rose Tico/Happiness, slight!Poe/Finn
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	melpomene

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; 

and if all else remained,  and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

_ \-  _ Emily Brontë _ , Wuthering Heights  _

_ -:- _

His lips taste of salt, and the unmistakable tang of blood. 

The kiss itself is warm and rushed, but passionate too. It is a spark that sets alight the simmering tension. It is the palpable relief that crackles like the lightning around them. She can feel the hint of his smile beneath her mouth as she kisses him, feel how his lips quirk up so much that she can’t help but respond in kind. His cheek brushes hers as her hands clasp the side of his face, her fingers tangling momentarily in his hair. Adrenaline tingles its way down her spine where his hands brush against her clothes.

Against all odds they are alive. They made it. 

He is no longer Kylo Ren, but Ben Solo. He is the man whose hand she wished to take, who sits before her now, who is kissing her. She knows she should feel cold but in his embrace she feels warm. 

As they pull away from each other she watches as his face creases in mirth, taking in how he grins at her. Out of relief or out of joy, she does not know. But it is funny she thinks - later, when she fully casts her mind over the series of events that led her here - how before that point she realised she had never seen him smile. 

And then, as quickly as it happened, it is over. 

Quicker than she has time to fully comprehend much, he is gone, faded in her arms leaving nothing but a pile of clothes on the damp stone floor. But she does not weep or cry out. There isn’t time for that. 

Above her a battle is coming to a close, the sound of gunfire and explosions raining down from the sky in a delayed cacophony of noise. Around her, there is rubble and the stench of death and burned flesh. A fitting tomb for the extinction of the Sith, but a poor one of the death of a conflicted young man. 

Carefully, her hands - steady although still cold and a little stiff from the death she had been revived from - fold up his clothes and tuck them under her arm. There isn’t much time for anything else but to escape, and although he is gone, the tug of the Force that thrums along her skin tells her that he is never far away. 

-:- 

“Rey?” 

The celebrations have been in full swing for the better part of several hours, and she is bone tired. She has hugged more people than she can put names to, laughed and revelled and joked with others, but still the weight of what has occured sits heavy on her shoulders. It is as though the cold from the cave, from death, has seeped into her bones and stayed there. 

She should be happy. She knows she should be out there, celebrating with the rest of the Resistance who came out of this alive, when they’d thought for one terrible moment this would be the end of hope. The end of not just their lives, but their entire way of existence at the mercy of the Final Order and the Sith.

She looks up from where she is sat, nestled in the open hangar of the Millenium Falcon, to see Finn. His eyes are bright with mirth, reflecting the light of the fire off to the side, but his brow is quizzical as he approaches her. “You feelin’ okay?” 

She sighs and nods, offering him a small, warm smile. “Yeah, I’m just…” Her reply tails off into nothingness, as she waves her hand at the clustered groups of celebrating people. 

Finn follows her gaze and nods as he perches on the bench next to her. She is thankful that she doesn’t need to say much around him for him to understand what is going on in her mind. At least this means she doesn’t have to talk as much. 

“I get it,” he says, resting a placating hand on her arm, and squeezing it reassuringly. “Take the time you need.”

She nods, fiddling with the cuff of her sleeve, deliberately not meeting his gaze. “Thanks.” 

For a while there is silence. At first it is comfortable, sitting with one of her best friends in the entire galaxy, watching the party continue on in quiet contemplation. But soon, the silence stretches like an elastic band grown too taut, and the tension rises to the surface again. 

She sighs, winding her fingers together, staring down at her feet. Finn shifts besides her.

“You know I thought I’d feel happier,” she says quietly, daring to let the words that had sat in her head pass her lips. 

“Yeah.” Finn murmurs back, his voice soft and reassuring. “I know.”

The last few hours flicker in her memory, remembering how she had embraced Finn and Poe when she’d first landed back at the Resistance base. She had felt relief radiate out from them in waves. They were alive, they were here. There was a bond between them all now that could never be broken. 

But there had been death too.

There is one in particular that sits all too painfully at the forefront of her mind, fresh as an open wound.

“He listened to me, you know. At the end.”

Her words shatter the silence. Finn’s brow creases again, his hands laying flat on his knees as he tilts his entire body to now face her. “Ren?” 

She shakes her head, her lips pursing for a moment, biting back her words before she answers. “Ben. I told him he could change. That it wasn’t too late.”

Finn’s gaze is sympathetic now. She knows that the change in his name has not gone unnoticed, but it is telling that Finn decides not to comment on it. She is aware that no-one knows what happened in the cave - no-one has pressed to ask her after she returned back bloody and with two lightsabers holstered at her hip - and she knows that he isn’t about to push her. 

And yet - she wants to tell someone. It is not just that this story deserves to be told, but to her, it is the final symbol of hope; that even those who were once thought lost could find themselves again. 

She shifts in her seat, and swivels her hips so that she is facing Finn. Leaning close, their knees touching, she puts her hand into his outstretched one and clasps it tightly. The orange glow of the lights cast one half of his face in shadow, whilst the other is illuminated - like the glow of a lightsaber might in a dark cave. 

“On Exegol, I--”. She starts, and stops, slowly, trying as much as she can to give voice to the enormity of what happened. She can see and feel everything as though she is still there, as soon as she mentions the hidden Sith world. But how can she explain it to Finn?

She tries again. “When I fought Palpatine, I  _ felt _ them - the entirety of the Jedi - behind me. All that ever was, all those who’d come before and for a moment--” she trails off, the images flooding her memory as she speaks. In that moment, she is transported back. She can feel her heart beat faster beneath her chest at the memory, and her mouth goes dry. 

She whispers her next words, dropping her gaze.

“I can’t explain it. It’s a…”

“Feeling?” Finn cuts in, and she nods. It is such a simple word, and yet it explains so much. The Force unites all, and through it, she could never feel alone. To explain what it felt like to have the entirety of those who she had sought channelled through her in that moment - the voices in her head, guiding her lightsaber - would be near impossible. 

“Yeah. A feeling.”

There is a beat of silence. She contemplates telling him that she died in that cave. That the icy grip of death clenched its hand over her heart and took her life force from her when she destroyed the man who called himself her grandfather. But she doesn’t. 

Tonight they are meant to be celebrating. Whatever she needs to say, it can wait. 

Instead, she watches as Finn’s expression changes from concern to care, and feels how his other hand comes to settle on top of hers. The warmth of them makes her fingers tingle. “You know we’re here for you, right? Me, Poe...” 

She nods, removing herself from the intensity of his gaze to stare at their intertwined hands and squeezes it once more. “Yeah, I know.” 

There is a pause, and in it, she hears Finn sigh. Beyond that, the whoops and cheers of the celebrations reach them, and she turns to look at the groups of people mingled, laughing, and drinking.

“I better join them, hadn’t I?” She attempts a light chuckle, although it comes out as more of a croak. “Can’t stay here all night.” 

She says it with such conviction that she surprises even herself for a moment. But instead of stopping her, Finn grins and stands up, tugging her up with him. 

“Come on,” he says, dropping her hand so it falls back by her side. “Take as long as you need. Poe’s waiting somewhere...” His voice trails off, and she notices how he lingers over her friend’s name with a growing affection. 

She smiles, and follows him out. 

For now, it can wait. For tonight, and ever since she returned, she is no longer alone. 

-:-

That night when she sleeps, she dreams of falling. 

She is on the large grey platform of stone, plunging down into the bowels of the planet. The air is thin, damp and cold, and it catches in the back of her throat as she breathes in.

She shouldn’t be here, but something pulls her down nevertheless. The scene is familiar, yet alien. She knows this place, but it is also somewhere she has never been. It is like a word on the tip of her tongue she cannot quite grasp.

As she moves there is a weight in the pit of her stomach, a sense of foreboding, and she feels every muscle in her body tense like a coiled spring. 

“ _ Rey, rey rey reyrey _ ”

The voices scatter around the cave as she plunges deeper and deeper downwards. Nothing but blackness surrounds her, and the whistling wind as the platform speeds up sounds in her ears. 

But still, the voices do not stop. 

“ _ Reyreyreyrey--” _

Her breath comes shorter, as though it is being choked out of her. Instinctively, she puts a hand to her throat, and tries to stop the dizzying sensation. To calm her mind. To feel the Force. 

Then with an abruptness the platform stops and she tumbles from it, hands slamming into cold, wet stone that lies beneath her. The vibration travels up her arm sharply, like lightning, unable to soften the blow, and she cries out in the sudden pain of it all. 

But when she looks up, she is alone. All that she can see are the large statues of Sith in chains, lit by the dim crackle of blue lightning that ricochets above. 

_ “How does it feel, Rey?”  _

The voice is a singular one now, apart from the hushed whispers of what came before. And it is one she recognises. 

_ “How does it feel to make people sacrifice themselves for you?”  _

Nausea and fear churn in her stomach as her eyes wildly rove the gloomy landscape to find the source of the noise. 

“The Sith are no more. We destroyed them.” She yells out into the void, although her voice isn't sure.

A laugh, cackling and maniacal, sounds. It is a sound that she knows will haunt her for the rest of her days. The voice speaks again, mocking and cruel.

_ “And you destroyed him. What makes you any different?”  _

Lightning, again, flashes in a blue crackling arc above her. But instead of a statue, it illuminates a face she saw mere hours ago. A face she cradled in her hands. A face she kissed.

Only now it is bloodied and pale. Only now his eyes are wide open and sightless. 

She wakes abruptly, her skin cold and clammy and her sheets damp with sweat, her heart racing. 

_ It’s a dream,  _ she thinks, her mind tumbling over the images like a jumbled puzzle piece.  _ He’s dead. I saw it.  _

The room is quiet. She is alone, having fallen asleep in a table nook on the _ Millenium Falcon _ . Clearly in her doze someone had kindly placed a blanket over her, an item she clutches at now as she tries to still her racing heart. 

Had it been this hard for other Jedi? To face their deepest fears when they slept? No one had ever thought to talk to her about what might come after, when the Sith had been defeated and when the biggest threat to the galaxy had been conquered. 

Of all the eventualities, this was something she hadn’t been trained for. Grief. And the bottomless hole it left in your chest when you realised what had left you was never coming back.

Licking her lips, she shuts her eyes and tries to still her mind. The material of the blanket is rough beneath her fingertips. Not for the first time since she had embarked on her final mission, and since she had found out she had died, she misses General Leia Organa with a gnawing sorrow that buries deep within her chest.  She has allowed herself to feel emotion before. She is more than familiar with how anger and sorrow builds up and overspills. But for the first time since returning, she lets that emotion she has been struggling to keep contained spill over. She is a bucket that had been left to fill, and there is nothing gentle or calm about how she succumbs to it now.

Muffling the fabric into her face, she presses the musty wool against her mouth and nose as she lets loose a torrent of emotion, letting her shoulders shake with wet, howling sobs, in the still and silence of the night. 

**Author's Note:**

> This will hopefully be a slow burn, post-TROS fic. Follows the typical plot idea of "what if Ben Solo could come back/didn't really die?" but it'll be a slow one with some (hopefully) intriguing plots twists and turns along the way. Set entirely after The Rise of Skywalker, with some flashbacks/references to the sequel narrative. 
> 
> Enjoy! (Also any suggestions for good quotes or lore to add, let me know. <3 )


End file.
